The United Health Foundation has put out its annual ranking of the healthiest and unhealthiest states.
From Forbes:
This annual ranking, published by the United Health Foundation, looks at 22 indicators of health, including everything from how many children receive recommended vaccinations, to obesity and smoking rates, to cancer deaths. (Insurer UnitedHealth Group funds the foundation.) Scores for each state are determined by gathering data from a variety of government and nongovernmental databases and then calculating how much each state is better or worse than the national average for each measure.
Check out the report here.
I suppose this means it's time for comedians to drag out the jokes about Wisconsinites being brat-eating, beer-swilling, super-sized, unhealthy people.
An example from July, 2009, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien:
Wisconsin has a new state quarter. It has the image of a morbidly obese man and the saying, "Wisconsin - Where Toes Are Just A Myth."
Those jokes don't work. Wisconsin is getting a bad rap when it comes to health.
Evidence:
Wisconsin is the twelfth healthiest state in the nation, up from seventeenth in 2008.
We're ahead of California, home to all those beautiful, health conscious people. We're healthier than New York and our neighbor to the south, Illinois.
Wisconsin scores at the very bottom in binge drinking. We do need to work on that. But overall we did improve our ranking by 5 places since 2008.
More proof that Wisconsin doesn't deserve the needling we get about our health.
For the record, Vermont is the healthiest state and Mississippi is the unhealthiest.
Hat tip to Dave.
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